Transcript of Samantha Morton, actor
Samantha Morton is an actor and director. She has appeared in films directed by Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg, and is also known for her work on independent productions, often with serious themes such as prostitution and bereavement. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards and won many accolades including a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. Born in Nottingham in 1977, she had a difficult childhood. She was first taken into care as a baby, then spent the next decade between foster parents and her father’s home before being taken into care permanently at the age of 11. She was sexually abused in one of the homes, and left school at the age of 13. She discovered acting when a teacher recommended she apply to the Central Junior Television Workshop which lead to her appearing in TV series including Soldier Soldier, Cracker, and Band of Gold. She went onto appear in the films, Emma and Jane Eyre and received her first Academy Award nomination for her role as a mute laundress in Woody Allen’s 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown. Her second was for her portrayal of a grieving mother in the 2003 film In America. Other roles have ranged from Mary, Queen of Scots, in Elizabeth: The Golden Age to a war widow in The Messenger and the wife of a serial killer in Rillington Place. She made her directorial debut with The Unloved in 2009, a film based on her own experience of the care system. It won the BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama. Sam lives in Sussex with her husband, Harry Holm. They have two children together, Edie and Teddy. Sam also has a daughter, Esme, from her relationship with Charlie Creed-Miles. DISC ONE: Burden of Shame by UB40 DISC TWO: Flower by The Charlatans DISC THREE: The Town I Loved So Well (Live) by Luke Kelly And The Dubliners DISC FOUR: Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) by Talking Heads DISC FIVE: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized DISC SIX: Blume (French version) by Einstürzende Neubauten DISC SEVEN: Dream Baby Dream by Suicide DISC EIGHT: I Remember by Molly Drake BOOK CHOICE: Light on Yoga: The Bible of Modern Yoga by B. K. S. Iyengar LUXURY ITEM: A photograph of Samantha's children CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale
- 45:27
- 3.6K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Yusuf Cat Stevens, musician
Yusuf Cat Stevens is a singer-songwriter who first enjoyed success more than 50 years ago. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou in July 1948. His Greek Cypriot father and his Swedish mother ran a restaurant in the West End of London, and he helped out there from an early age. He also became interested in music, writing and singing his own songs, partly inspired by the success of The Beatles. Under the name Cat Stevens, he was just 18 when he had his first hit, and soon found himself on tour with Engelbert Humperdinck and Jimi Hendrix. His career came to a sudden halt in 1969, when he contracted tuberculosis and was forced out of the limelight for a year of recuperation. It was also a time of reflection. He emerged a changed man in 1970 - a sensitive singer-songwriter whose albums, including Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and the Firecat, sold millions of copies around the world. While enjoying fame and success, he also thought more deeply about religious faith, an interest which increased after he nearly drowned while swimming in the Pacific. He became a Muslim in 1977, changed his name to Yusuf Islam and walked away from music. He soon became one of the UK's most high-profile Muslims, and was often asked to comment about aspects of Islam. For two decades, he didn’t touch his guitar, but in 2006 he made a comeback with an album entitled An Other Cup. He has released three more albums since then and has recently recorded a new version of perhaps his best-known work, Tea for the Tillerman. Yusuf lives in Dubai with his wife Fawziah. They have four daughters and one son who has followed in his father's musical footsteps. DISC ONE: America from West Side Story by Anita (Rita Moreno), Bernado (George Chakiris), The Sharks And Girls DISC TWO: Tutti Frutti by Little Richard DISC THREE: Twist and Shout by The Beatles DISC FOUR: March From A Clockwork Orange (Beethoven: Ninth Symphony: Fourth Movement, abridged) by Wendy Carlos DISC FIVE: The Wind by Cat Stevens DISC SIX: Allah Uya by Ali Farka Touré DISC SEVEN: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone DISC EIGHT: As by Stevie Wonder BOOK CHOICE: The Masnavi I Ma'navi of Rumi: Complete by Maulana Jalalu-'d-din Muhammad Rumi (Author), E. H. Whinfield (Translator) LUXURY ITEM: Bendicks Bittermints CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: As by Stevie Wonder Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor
- 35:06
- 2.6K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Bernardine Evaristo, writer
Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize in 2019 for her novel, Girl, Woman, Other. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London. Bernardine was born in May 1959, the fourth of eight children, to an English mother and a Nigerian father. She grew up in Woolwich in south London, and was educated at Eltham Hill Girls’ Grammar School. She spent her teenage years at the Greenwich Young People’s Theatre and, after deciding that she wanted to be a professional actor at the age of 14, did a Community Theatre Arts course at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama. After graduation she founded the Theatre of Black Women with two fellow students in the early 1980s and they began to write roles for themselves. By the late 1980s, she had decided that it was the writing she enjoyed most. Her first poetry collection was published in 1994, followed by a semi-autobiographical verse novel called Lara three years later. More books followed, experimenting with form and narrative perspective, often merging the past with the present, prose with poetry, the factual with the speculative, and reality with alternate realities. Girl, Woman, Other is her eighth book. A longstanding activist and advocate, Bernardine has initiated several successful schemes to ensure increased representation of artists and writers of colour in the creative industries. She is married to David, who she met in 2006, and lives in London. DISC ONE: Malaika by Angélique Kidjo DISC TWO: Zombie by Fela Kuti DISC THREE: Breaths by Sweet Honey in the Rock DISC FOUR: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free by Nina Simone DISC FIVE: Woyaya by Osibisa DISC SIX: Köln, January 24, 1975, part I by Keith Jarrett DISC SEVEN: Things Have Changed by Bob Dylan DISC EIGHT: Fight The Power by Public Enemy BOOK CHOICE: The Norton Anthology of Poetry by Margaret Ferguson), Tim Kendall and Mary Jo Salter LUXURY ITEM: A hologram of Bernardine's husband CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Köln, January 24, 1975, part I by Keith Jarrett Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale
- 36:47
- 2.3K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Classic Desert Island Discs - Jack Charlton
The ball rolled past the gap between him and Gordon Banks and into the back of the net. The Germans were one goal up. Jack Charlton, Sue Lawley's castaway, recalls the match which was to bring him to his knees in relief and joy as England went on to win the 1966 World Cup - just one of the crowning moments of a career that could so easily have ended down the pit, except for his talent with the ball. Nicknamed The Boss because of his straight talking, Jack describes his relationship with his brother 'Our Kid' Bobby Charlton and his success as manager of Ireland. Jack died in July 2020, at the age of 85.
- 36:29
- 1.9K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Classic Desert Island Discs - Liz Smith
Kirsty Young's castaway is the actress Liz Smith. Her story is a triumph of talent and perseverance over circumstance. Her mother died when she was tiny, her father walked out of her life and for many years she was brought up by her grandmother who was in mourning for her only child and her own husband. For Liz, acting and making people laugh was an escape from the often harsh realities of life, but she had to wait until she was 50 for her first real break - a role in Mike Leigh's film Bleak Moments. By that time, she'd raised her two children on her own with very little money and knew that this was her opportunity to prove what she could do. She won critical acclaim and was later awarded a Bafta for her appearance in Alan Bennett's A Private Function and finally, when she was in her 70s, she became a household name through her roles in The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family. Liz Smith recorded this programme in 2008, when she was 86 years old. Favourite track: Only The Lonely by Roy Orbison Book: A very large catalogue Luxury: A complete artist's set.
- 37:15
- 2.3K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Classic Desert Island Discs - Wendy Cope
Wendy Cope is one of England’s most popular and widely-read contemporary poets. Wendy was born in Erith, Kent. Her father was 29 years older than her mother and she was sent to boarding school at the age of seven. Although English was her favourite subject at school, in a bid to defy her English teacher’s expectations, she read history at Oxford. Following graduation she became a primary school teacher. After the death of her father in 1971, Wendy entered psychoanalysis in 1973 and turned to writing poetry. Having attended evening classes in creative writing, one of her poems was published in a collection which brought her to the attention of Faber and Faber. Her first volume of poetry, Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis, was published in 1986, and became an instant success, and she gave up teaching to become a full time writer. She has since published four volumes of a poetry: Serious Concerns (1992), If I Don’t Know (2001), Family Values (2011) and Anecdotal Evidence (2018) as well as two volumes for children, Twiddling Your Thumbs (1988) and The River Girl (1991). In 2011, Wendy sold her entire personal archive to the British Library, which consisted of 15 boxes of manuscript, including several unpublished early works. Wendy lives in Ely and is married to fellow poet, Lachlan Mackinnon. Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale Show less
- 39:54
- 2.2K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate
Maria Balshaw is the Director of Tate, overseeing four major art galleries: Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate Modern and Tate St Ives. Maria was born in 1970 in Birmingham, and grew up in Northampton, where her father, Walter, was a parks officer, and her mother, Colette, was a teacher. She read English and Cultural Studies at the University of Liverpool and fell in love with the newly opened Tate Liverpool at Albert Dock. After working as an academic for almost a decade, she changed career and headed a government campaign to inspire creativity in schools. In 2006, she became director of the Whitworth gallery in Manchester, where she promoted works by women artists and oversaw a major redevelopment and expansion of the building. The Whitworth won the Art Fund Museum of the Year award in 2015. Maria also took on the roles of Director of Manchester City Galleries, and Director of Culture for Manchester City Council. The Observer called her “a northern powerhouse in her own right”. She took over leadership of the four Tate galleries from Sir Nicholas Serota in June 2017, and is the first woman to hold this role. Maria has two children from her first marriage and lives in Kent and London with her second husband, Nick Merriman, Director of the Horniman Museum. DISC ONE: Ghost Town by The Specials DISC TWO: Wild is the Wind by David Bowie DISC THREE: It's a Sin by Pet Shop Boys DISC FOUR: Love Hurts by Emmylou Harris with Gram Parsons DISC FIVE: Hope There's Someone by Antony and the Johnsons DISC SIX: Cantelowes by Toumani Diabaté DISC SEVEN: Waiting for the Great Leap Forward by Billy Bragg DISC EIGHT: Crown by Stormzy BOOK CHOICE: Vickery’s Folk Flora: an A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants by Roy Vickery LUXURY ITEM: A full set of flower and vegetable seeds CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Waiting for the Great Leap Forward by Billy Bragg Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale
- 35:14
- 2.7K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.